Sunday, June 7, 2009

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Where Were Your Ancestors in 1909?

Randy’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun over at Genea-Musings this week is to do the following:

1) Which of your ancestors were alive in 1909?

2) Tell us where your ancestral families were living in 1909. What country, state, county, city/town, etc. Who was in the family at the time? Use the 1910 census as "close enough."

3) Have you found each of these families in the 1910 census?

4) Write a blog post about your response. Or write a comment to this post.

5) Have fun. Learn something!

Since I have my families entered in my genealogy program up to the great-great-grandparent level so far and have also included census information for them when I could find it, it did not take too long to do this one.

(1) All four of my grandparents were alive; my mother’s parents had been married for two years, but my father’s parents would not get married for another two years.

All of my great-grandparents were still alive with the exception of my maternal grandmother’s father, Charles Augustus Floyd, who died in 1894.

All of my known great-great-grandparents had died by this time, though I cannot be certain in the case of the parents of my great-grandmother Susan Elizabeth Smith Brinlee, because I do not know who her parents were. There are some indications that she may have been orphaned when she was a child, however.

(2-3) Maternal grandparents Kirby and Eula Floyd Moore were living in Justice Precinct 5 (the Lancaster-Hutchins area), Dallas County, Texas with their oldest son, my Uncle Howard, age 1.

My maternal grandmother’s mother, Angeline Matlock Floyd, was also living in Justice Precinct 5, Dallas County, Texas with son Finley and daughter Dona.

My maternal grandfather’s parents, Harlston Perrin and Martha Lewis Moore, were also living in Justice Precinct 5, Dallas County, Texas with sons Luther, Clyde, and Preston.

Paternal grandfather Lawrence Brinlee was living with his parents, Hiram and Lizzie Smith Brinlee, in Justice Precinct 2, Hunt County, Texas.

I have not been able to find my paternal grandmother Sallie Norman or her parents William Henry “Jack” and Sara Jane Sisson Norman on the 1910 census, yet. Jack and Sara Norman were in Grayson County, Texas on the 1900 census and in Fannin County on the 1930 census (have not been able to find them on the 1920 census, either!). However, Lawrence and Sallie got married in Greenville, Hunt County, Texas in 1911, so I am guessing that Hunt County may also be a good probability for the Normans in 1910.

You can see a map of the Hutchins area of Dallas County, Texas taken from Sam’s Street Map of Dallas County, 1900, located on Jim Wheat’s Dallas County Texas Archives. The Floyds and Moores would have been living on or around the area in the lower left corner marked “Geo. Floyd” (my great-great-grandfather, father of Charles Augustus Floyd). You can see the name “Mrs. A. Floyd.” The farm of great-grandparents H. P. and Martha Lewis Moore would be one of the triangles somewhere in that area which, according to the key, indicates “Houses, occupied by renters, names not given,” since H. P. Moore was a tenant farmer.

Thanks, Randy – as usual, this was a lot of fun, and it provides a nice snapshot of our ancestors 100 years ago.

2 comments:

Enjoyed this Greta. Did any of your Norman relatives end up in Palo Pinto County? The dearest lady, Mary Norman, kept me and Peggy when we were little. Under 6 years old. I'm trying to remember her husband's name. I'll get it soon. Her son and his wife were Bunch and Faye Norman. All lived in Mineral Wells. Mary gave my Grandmother a set of depression glass, named Iris by Jeannette, that my mother had given to her for keeping us. When we got older she gave it to Grandma and I now have it. I can say she got me started on the addictive habit of collecting glass!

It's quite possible that some of our Normans were there. So far most of my great-grandfather Jack Norman's siblings ended up either in Fannin, Texas or Hot Springs, Arkansas. However, his father, Joseph Madison Carroll Norman, had 26 or 27 children by three different wives (though I think only about 21 survived childhood) and I am still working on the children of his first wife (Jack Norman was his oldest son). Jack and some of the Normans and Sissons came straight to Texas from Alabama, whereas JMC and some of his younger children stayed in Arkansas, where there used to be a huge annual family reunion to which the Texas kin would come. It wouldn't surprise me if I find some of JMC's descendants in Palo Pinto. Turned out one of my Norman cousins lives in Seymour, Texas where I grew up (I didn't know she was kin at the time) and hosted a big reunion of JMC descendants in 2005; I found out too late to attend, a real opportunity missed. I know two people (and you make three) who collect depression glass.

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After spending my formative years paying no heed to all the family stories, I got hooked on genealogy later in life and am now trying to catch up. My husband and I had long ago developed an interest in graveyards and have enjoyed visiting them while on vacation. I have started two Graveyard Rabbit blogs as a way, in addition to my participation in Findagrave, to help make information to other people who are researching their family history.
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